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Selling a book with Apple’s iBook Author program is now a one-way ticket to Apple being the only place you can sell the book. Maybe selling your book on iBooks isn’t such a great deal after all.

Dan Wineman of Venomous Porridge went to publish his first book from within the iBooks Author application when he was met with a curious notice. Once a book is made available for sale in the iBookstore, it can only be sold through that venue.

(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

Ugh, the worst part is that you never agree to anything when you install the application. The EULA never appears when you install. Apparently, you implicitly agree to the EULA simply by using the software. If you’ve worked for weeks on a book only to discover you can’t sell it anywhere else once you publish it to the iBookstore, you’re gonna be pissed.

Apple is jumping into the world of publishing here. If you had a deal with Random House to sell your book, you wouldn’t be able to have Penguin Publishing also sell it. These deals, however, are transparent. The restrictions don’t just appear as you prepare to submit your manuscript. Apple is assuming rights over your content in the worst possible way. [Venomous Porridge]

Netflix has made no bones about the fact that it’s competing (hard) with HBO, and it seems that the sentiment is the same on the other side. According to CNET, HBO has stopped providing Netflix with DVDs of its shows. Of course, the freedom to purchase from other legitimate resellers has enabled Netflix to keep the discs flying, but it’s no longer able to source ‘em directly from the Box Office’s warehouse. The deal supposedly went into effect at the start of this year, but it’s unlikely that you’ll ever notice; as the story goes, Netflix will have to pay slightly more to procure them elsewhere, but it’s mostly a symbolic move by HBO to ruffle the feathers of Reed Hastings and co. Oh, and if you thought the same luxuries found in HBO Go would ever find its way to Netflix’s streaming department, we’d ask that you share a little of your optimism with the rest of the world.

If you’ve worked in an office, chances are you’re surrounded by people who use cliched phrases like “touch base” and “circle back” every time they’re in a meeting, delivering a presentation, or giving a speech. Whether or not these phrases once had meaning, they’ve long since lost their meaning for many. They’ve actually got the opposite effect now, because they’re so cliched. So which phrases should you avoid? Meeting Boy has a list.

If you know anyone who uses these phrases feel free to show them this post. You can’t blame the words, but it’s worth keeping your language fresh and cliche-free when possible to avoid weakening the point you’re trying to make. You’ve heard my take (and Meeting Boy’s), but let’s hear your most hated work cliches.

You can tweak the rules to keep it interesting, but that copy of Monopoly sitting in your closet is always going to be Monopoly. The GameChanger, however, incorporates swappable skins and an iPad running accompanying apps so every game night it can be something completely different.

Instead of just using the iPad as a source for quiz questions or flashy animations, the GameChanger board actually serves as an iPad dock, allowing it to interact with the four included game pieces as they make their way around the board. Out of the box it includes two skins, The Magic School Bus and AnimalMania, with free downloadable apps that provide instructions, trivia, a virtual wheel and even automatic score keeping. But replay value isn’t its only advantage. The use of the iPad also eliminates the need for stacks of cards, dice, hotels, tiles and other accessories that can get bumped or even go missing, rendering a traditional board game unplayable. GameChanger’s available now for $80, while additional skins are promised to be released sometime in November. [GameChanger via Engadget]

You can tweak the rules to keep it interesting, but that copy of Monopoly sitting in your closet is always going to be Monopoly. The GameChanger, however, incorporates swappable skins and an iPad running accompanying apps so every game night it can be something completely different.

Instead of just using the iPad as a source for quiz questions or flashy animations, the GameChanger board actually serves as an iPad dock, allowing it to interact with the four included game pieces as they make their way around the board. Out of the box it includes two skins, The Magic School Bus and AnimalMania, with free downloadable apps that provide instructions, trivia, a virtual wheel and even automatic score keeping. But replay value isn’t its only advantage. The use of the iPad also eliminates the need for stacks of cards, dice, hotels, tiles and other accessories that can get bumped or even go missing, rendering a traditional board game unplayable. GameChanger’s available now for $80, while additional skins are promised to be released sometime in November. [GameChanger via Engadget]

“Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex brand is offering an at-home version of a product that people take for granted in public restrooms: disposable hand towels. The new Kleenex Hand Towels are intended to address consumers’ growing concern with hand hygiene.

The product is on sale now with a retail price of about $3 for a box of 60 towels, per the company.

The Kleenex Hand Towels come in box packaging, with pop-up delivery. The product is intended to complement bathroom décor and space limitations — i.e., it can go on a towel bar or countertop.

Kleenex Hand Towels performed well in preliminary testing with consumers, the company says: Approximately two-thirds said they would use Kleenex Hand Towels as a substitute for cloth towels, and more than 90% reacted favorably to how the product and package design looked in their bathrooms.”

They used FOCUS GROUPS! And 2/3 said they would use! But think about it: $3 a box versus cloth towels I already have at home. At home, I don’t use disposable hand towels and at home I am not concerned about “hand hygiene” as I am in a public bathroom.

Taking the top box office results for each of 52 weekends from the past 10 complete years (1998 – 2008; Source: IMDB.com) we see consistently that occasions like Valentines, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving show increased movie going activity. People have more time during these holidays to go to the movies and Valentines is a date+movie occasion. Also, during the summer, many people go to the movie theatre to escape the heat so there is an overall hump every year during the summer months — from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

People go out during Valentines, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving. And they still spend what they planned to spend — 2 tickets for movie — they didn’t buy 2 more tickets and see a second movie on the same date or holiday weekend. If they had several good movies to choose from (often, they don’t), they would choose to spend the finite dollars on the one movie they really wanted to see. The overall movie spending “pie” did not increase much, if any, year over year.

1998 $4,055,194,733 n/a

1999 $4,253,601,768 5%

2000 $4,496,554,005 6%

2001 $5,003,433,737 11%

2002 $5,489,974,199 10%

2003 $5,581,797,720 2%

2004 $ 5,697,299,530 2%

2005 $ 5,524,566,579 -3%

2006 $ 5,660,826,625 +2%

2007 $ 5,968,027,963 +5%

2008 $ 5,887,193,490 -1%

The chart below shows a red line which is the average of all 10 years. The 10 thin blue lines are the annual lines from1998 – 2008, inclusive and these are plotted as actual dollars. They come out right on top of each other.

Movie advertising, which runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year, has failed to noticeably increase the overall spending year-round or even during specific times. The chart below shows the differentials (difference between an annual line and the 10-yr average line). These all hover closely in the +$50M and -$50M band. The amplitude of the 10-yr average (red line) is larger than $50M in the summer hump — implying that the average change in movie ticket sales due to normal seasonality is larger than the change in amplitude caused by ALL movie advertising combined.

And the summer “hump” is due to actual demand (people going out to movie theatres, some to escape the heat) not due to advertising. The only effect of advertising is to share-shift from one movie to another — the total spending remains consistent and even seasonal variations are consistent — a “zero-sum game.”

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.